The name is akin to an institution of the Indian cinema. Rajinikanth is truly a global superstar whose fan-base crosses age, class, gender and borders. As the superstar’s ‘Petta’ gets a thumbs up from the audience, here are some facts about the super star you should know.
Rajinikanth was born to Jijabai and Ramoji Rao Gaikwad, a Maharashtrian couple living in Bengaluru, on December 12, 1950. He was named Shivaji Rao Gaikwad.Before entering the film industry, Rajinikanth used to work as a coolie, carpenter and a bus conductor for the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation in Bangalore.
He started off his acting career with mythological Kannada plays. His most prominent role was that of Duryodhana.His friend Raj Bahadur encouraged him to become an actor. Bahadur asked him to enrol in the Madras Film Institute where director K Balachander noticed him in a Kannada play. He then asked Rajini to learn Tamil.
He developed his trademark cigarette style (tossing it up in the air and catching it with his lips) when he was 18. He wanted to show his seniors that he was eligible to join their gang.
Rajinikanth’s first big commercial success was Billa, a remake of the 1978 Amitabh Bachchan-starrer, Don. He has starred in 11 Tamil remakes of Amitabh Bachchan films like Deewar, Amar Akbar Anthony, Laawaris and Don among others.
T Rama Rao’s Andha Kanoon was Rajinikanth’s first Bollywood film.In 1988, Rajinikanth acted in the English action adventure Bloodstone. Baasha, which released in 1995, established the actor as a superstar and broke several box-office records.
Rajinikanth usually goes to the Himalayas after the release of his films. The same room is allotted for him in the hotels he visits including Rishikesh where he stays during his Himalayan trips. He also visits Bengaluru frequently to hang out with his old buddies.
Latha Rangachari, Rajinikanth’s wife, is eight years younger to him. The two met when Latha came to interview him for her college magazine. They got married in 1981. The couple has two daughters Aishwarya and Soundarya.
He received a fee of Rs 26 crore in 2007 for the hit movie Shivaji. This made him the second highest paid actor in Asia after Jackie Chan. Rajinikanth is the only Indian actor to be featured in the CBSE syllabus. His every film is contractually obligated to credit him as ‘Superstar Rajinikant’.
He is the first Indian actor to have worked in films using different camera technologies like black-and-white, colour, 3D and motion capture. Rajinikanth’s ‘Enthiran’ is the only Tamil film that made it into IMDb’s Top 50 films from around the world list in 2010. The film has been included as a case study in an IIM-A postgraduate elective course,
Contemporary Film Industry: A Business Perspective.If his movies flop at the box office, he pays the money back to the distributors.
About ‘Petta’
The movie brings back the vintage Rajinikanth we all adore. It is seen as a tribute to Rajinikanth’s 1997 megahit film Baasha. The multi-starrer was released in Tamil, Telugu and Hindi. Karthik Subbaraj, the film’s director, who narrated the story to Rajinikath in 2015 had to wait since he went on to do ‘Kaala’ and later announced his political entry.